ALBANY – Andrew Cuomo would be the “instant favorite” if he enters what is expected to be a crowded field for mayor next year, Gov. Paterson said yesterday.

Paterson is known to be concerned about a possible election challenge from either Mayor Bloomberg or Cuomo in 2010. Last week, the governor said that overturning term limits so that Bloomberg could run again for mayor was a “great idea.”

Yesterday, he said of Cuomo, “If he ran for mayor, or even thought about it, he’d be an instant favorite.”

Paterson said he doesn’t expect Cuomo to run for mayor, a post the attorney general’s father, Mario Cuomo, sought unsuccessfully in 1977, five years before becoming governor.